


Which Indeed

by EaglePursuit



Series: Another Summer's Sunny Days [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Crystal - Freeform, F/M, Post-Gravity Falls, Returning to Gravity Falls, Short, Teenage Dipper Pines, Teenage Dipper Pines and Mabel Pines, Teenage Mabel Pines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24783574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EaglePursuit/pseuds/EaglePursuit
Summary: Part 2 of the Another Summer's Sunny Days series. Dipper and Mabel set off on a mundane errand, but quickly stumble upon Preston Northwest's scheme to regain his wealth by devastating Gravity Fall's forests. Can they stop him before he claims it all?
Relationships: Dipper Pines/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Another Summer's Sunny Days [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792519
Kudos: 16





	Which Indeed

**Author's Note:**

> Based on: Disney’s Gravity Falls  
> Created by: Alex Hirsch
> 
> Beta readers: my wife & PK2317  
> Art by: KID | @KIDWMA

Which Indeed

“I’m telling you, Mabel. I can live without deodorant for a week,” Dipper claimed vehemently as he and his sister walked down Main Street, destined for a convenience store.

Mabel looked at him skeptically. “And I’m telling you, bro-bro. The sister who shares your room can’t live _without_ you having deodorant for a week. Not to mention the bus ride home. You only showered two hours ago and you’re already ripe enough to scare off roadkill.”

“But if I buy another stick, I’ll have two deodorants when I get back.”

“Then it’s perfect!” —Mabel gestured emphatically— “You’ll have one for each source of the smell.”

They were about to cross one of the side streets when Dipper pulled Mabel back onto the sidewalk. A large, black luxury SUV with windows tinted so dark no one couldn’t see inside sped through the crosswalk and almost ran her over. It careened through the intersection and turned left onto Main so hard the tires squealed in protest.

“Did you see that?” Dipper asked in alarm.

Mabel furrowed her brow. “A lot closer than I would have liked, to be honest.” She crossed her arms and blew a raspberry at the speeding vehicle.

“No, the license plate. It said ‘NRTHWST.’”

“Really?” She looked back at the SUV. “Hey, look! They stopped.” A few blocks away, it had pulled into a parking spot in front of the Gravity Falls Museum of History. “Come on. I want to give them a piece of my mind.” She pulled Dipper along as she marched up the street.

Preston Northwest, dressed in a dark blue suit with a small US flag pinned to his lapel, stepped out of the driver’s side door and closed it behind him. He looked around suspiciously, then pressed a button on his key fob. The SUV’s horn beeped, indicating that the alarm was set.

Dipper grabbed Mabel’s arm to slow her down. “Hold on. I want to see what he’s up to.”

They watched as Preston climbed the steps to the museum’s entrance. 

“Oh my gosh!” Mabel exclaimed. “What if he’s trying to revive the Blind Eye Society? Or using their lair for some evil scheme?”

Dipper nodded. “We should follow him just to be sure he isn’t up to no good.” 

The twins entered the museum minutes after Preston and spotted him standing in line for a tour with a crowd of milling tourists. 

Dipper pointed to a plaque by the front door. It read, ‘In gratitude for the generous donation of funds and historical artifacts by the Northwest Family Foundation’. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That’s weird. Why would Preston Northwest, of all people, want to go on a public tour in the museum he helped fund?”

“Yeah,” replied Mabel. “You’d think he’d go on a private tour. Let’s keep following and see what he does.”

They bought tickets and joined the crowd waiting for the tour to begin, lingering in the back so Preston wouldn’t notice them.

A museum staffer with a name tag that read ‘Sue’ opened the velvet rope and collected their tickets as they entered the first exhibition hall. Then she walked to the front of the group and addressed them, “Welcome to the Gravity Falls Museum of History. My name is Sue, and I’m your guide today. The first exhibit on the tour is Prehistoric Gravity Falls.” She led them down the first corridor lined with maps, diagrams, fossils, and taxidermy specimens. Sue kept a running commentary of insights about the objects on display as she herded the tour group down the corridor.

Preston followed along, but wasn’t paying much attention. He didn’t flock to the displays like the tourists. Instead, he kept looking ahead to the next exhibit hall and impatiently waited for Sue to move the group along.

Mabel trudged along sullenly. “How did this adventure turn into a boring junior high field trip so quickly?”

Dipper hushed her while closely examining the rings on a large cross section of a ponderosa pine tree. “If you don’t want to learn anything, at least keep a close eye on Preston.” As he suspected, the museum had no specimens of the myriad strange plants, animals, and minerals that existed in the forests just outside the liminal boundaries of the town or nor possessed even the slightest clue that an ancient saucer was buried below. One panel conjectured that the Hanging Cliffs were formed by tens of thousands of years of glacial erosion. 

The Prehistoric Gravity Falls exhibit ended with a display on the Native Americans that had inhabited the area. There were precious few artifacts to be seen; only a handful of broken arrowheads and stone axes. Sue described how the Native Americans had mysteriously abandoned the valley a thousand years ago and it had remained uninhabited until Euro-American settlers arrived.

The next exhibit hall had a big sign at the entrance labelling it ‘The Founding of Gravity Falls’. It was organized as a series of life-sized dioramas cordoned off by more velvet ropes. “Preston should know this stuff by heart,” Dipper whispered.

The first diorama depicted Nathaniel Northwest. A lifelike replica of the bearded man wearing an antique silk suit stood behind a writing desk in a room made of hand-hewn logs. A globe and a lantern sat on the desk with a feather quill and an ink bottle. A rough-looking backpack with a bedroll sat in the corner. There was a wood-burning stove and several cabinets along the back wall with a small window that looked out over a painted backdrop of a verdant forest.

Sue began reciting her commentary on the diorama, “Of course, everyone in Gravity Falls knows who this is; beloved town founder, Nathaniel Northwest. Nathaniel was a tireless explorer, clever fur trapper, inspiring leader, and prosperous businessman. It is said that Nathaniel owned all the forests in the valley, although no deed has ever turned up to substantiate that legend. Here we see him depicted in his business office. All the clothing, items, and furniture on display are authentic, generously donated to the museum by the Northwest Family Foundation.”

Dipper glanced at Preston. “That’s weird,” he mumbled. The current Northwest family patriarch had moved to the front of the crowd and was listening avidly as Sue described Nathaniel’s fictitious exploits. “Why is he so interested in this?”

Sue directed the tour to the next diorama across the aisle. “This is Nathaniel’s doting wife, Clothilde, and their two oldest children, Etheldreda and Ezekiel, portrayed here at the ages of thirteen and twelve. The Northwests had three other daughters, Astrid, Persephony, and Brigita. Nathaniel died first, leaving Clothilde a wealthy widow, while Ezekiel would go on to inherit the family businesses, ensuring that they would stay in the Northwest family for many generations. It is unknown what became of Clothilde’s fortune, as her will was never found, but many believe she left it all to Ezekiel, who cared for her until her death. And again, all the furniture and clothing seen here are authentic, donated by the Northwest Family Foundation.” The figure depicting Clothilde was seated in a rocking chair with a sewing project in its lap, wearing a dark red dress with a whale-bone bodice and a white bonnet. 

Ezekiel’s figure was dressed in nicely made play clothes: a wide-brimmed hat, white linen shirt with a brown vest over it, matching breeches with silver buckles, silk stockings and brown leather boots. The figure was holding a wooden hoop and a stick. Dipper felt confident that Ezekiel would burn with envy at the modest assortment of video games he owned.

The figure of Etheldreda also wore a bodiced dress like that of the mother, with a wide pleated skirt, this time made of alternating cream and blue fabric patterned with small stars. There was a fine woolen shawl over its shoulders embroidered with the monogram E.N. in sprawling, fanciful script and a satchel bag bearing the same monogram clutched in its hands.

Mabel noticed something about the figures of the mother and two children and whispered to Dipper, “Look, they all had blonde hair. Maybe Pacifica’s hair color is real.” 

“You could be right.” Dipper pointed to a black and white photograph of the family on a small table draped with an antique tablecloth that reached the floor next to the figure of Clothilde in which the real Clothilde and all of her children had light colored hair. Clothilde had a look about her that insinuated intelligence and fierceness. She had hard, bright eyes and the scowl of a person you didn’t double-cross.

Sue led the group to the next diorama depicting a lumberjack camp and gave a colorful commentary on the rough lives of early lumbermen.

Dipper noticed Preston was no longer with the group and looked back. The patriarch was still standing in front of the Nathaniel Northwest diorama. He grabbed Mabel by the sleeve and pulled her into a lumberjack tent as the tour moved on to a depiction of a farmstead. “Let’s wait here until the tour leaves, then we’ll sneak back and spy on Preston.”

They stayed in the tent until they heard Sue announce that the tour group was entering the next exhibit titled, ‘1920s Gravity Falls: Moonshiners’ Paradise’. Dipper peeked out of the tent; Preston was climbing over the velvet rope into the Nathaniel Northwest diorama.

Dipper gestured for Mabel to follow him and sneaked over to the diorama of Clothilde and the children as Preston started opening drawers in Nathaniel’s desk. “We need disguises,” he whispered and pointed to the figures of Ezekiel and Etheldreda. He pulled them behind the table and began removing the clothes from the Ezekiel figure. He made quick work of putting them on over his own clothes.

However, Mabel was struggling to slip the blue and cream dress on quietly. “What the heck!? There’s a metal cage in this thing,” she mouthed to her brother. She ended up crawling into the dress from beneath and wiggling her be-sweatered torso into the bodice. “Tie me up.”

Dipper grabbed the strings in the back of the bodice and pulled them, constricting the garment around his sister's body, and causing her to emit a surprised squeak. Preston looked up in alarm as Dipper and Mabel froze in place. He glanced around, nervously twitching his mustache, then resumed rifling through the old desk as the twins watched.

Mabel elbowed her brother in the ribs after he finished tying the bodice strings. “I hate this thing already,” she grumbled quietly.

Dipper whispered in her ear, “Imagine how Pacifica’s graunty felt. She had to wear dresses like that every day.”

Mabel frowned back at him grumpily.

Preston had turned around and directed his attention to the cabinets along the back wall, pulling each drawer out and inspecting the backs and bottoms. “I don’t get what he’s doing,” Dipper whispered. “That furniture probably sat in his attic most of his life. Why is he looking through them now?”

Once he was convinced there was nothing in the cabinets, Preston picked up the pack in the corner. He spun around to set it on the desk, but clumsily bumped into it instead. The mortise and tenon joint that connected one of the legs to the frame of the antique desk failed, sending the whole thing crashing loudly to the floor.

Preston hastily tried to reattach the leg to the desk then paused and held it up with an expression of curiosity on his face. He looked at the broken end and he grinned smugly, slipping a finger into the mortise and extracted a large rolled up piece of paper from a hidden cavity. He set the piece of paper on the floor and carefully unrolled it. He kneeled over it, running his fingers across the yellowed paper and muttering to himself.

“I wish I knew what it says,” Dipper whispered to his sister.

Mabel pointed up. Despite the museum’s neo-classical facade, this wing was built with modern sensibilities. The interior space had no ceiling. Instead, there were exposed trusses made of welded steel holding up the roof and painted matte black to make them less likely to draw the eye of museum-goers.

Dipper nodded; Mabel pulled out her grappling hook and quietly launched it into the trusses overhead. She tripped the catch, then silently rose into the air. It didn’t seem to matter. Preston was engrossed in what he was looking at. She climbed into the trusswork and positioned herself over Preston’s head, grateful she had opted to put on Etheldreda’s bloomers. She carefully lowered herself with the grappling hook until she was just over his head. Then she slipped her phone out of her bodice, activated the camera, and took a picture that included Preston’s bald spot.

Preston finished and rolled up the paper. Then he stood abruptly, smacking the top of his head on the crinoline of Mabel’s dress. Surprised to have struck the steel cage that gave the skirt its shape, he stumbled away before turning to look up at her. “You!”

Dipper sprang to action, jumping over the velvet rope in front of the diorama he was hiding in and positioned himself between Preston and his sister, who was letting herself down to the floor. “Stay away from my sister, Mr. Northwest!”

Preston pointed his finger at them. “You two cost me my family’s fortune!” Then his tone darkened, “And you’ve ruined my perfect little girl!”

“We don’t know anything about that,” Dipper retorted. “You lost your own fortune by siding with a demon!”

“Well, I’m going to get it all back!” —Preston waved the roll of paper in front of them.— “I’m going to find the lost deed, strip the forest bare, sell the land for development, and buy back the mansion!”

“Not if we stop you first!” Dipper threatened angrily.

Preston raised his fist to punch Dipper, then turned and smiled cruelly. “Security! Security! These ne’er-do-wells are vandalizing museum property!”

“We are not; you are!” Mabel wrinkled her nose at him. 

Preston sneered. “Who are they going to believe, little girl? You or me? You’re the ones wearing museum artifacts.”

Dipper and Mabel ran as security guards entered the exhibit hall. Mabel struggled in the one-hundred-sixty year old dress. “Loosen the strings!” she gasped.

Dipper untied the knot in the back of her bodice as they ran, allowing her to breathe more freely. Then he grabbed her hand and helped her through the 1920s. The heavy crinoline clattered and banged through the dioramas, leaving a trail of scattered artifacts for the guards to stumble over.

Dipper saw a door with a glowing red sign above it — Emergency Exit — between two dioramas. “This way!” He dragged Mabel to the door and pushed it open, triggering an alarm.

The door opened onto the museum grounds and the twins sprinted through the flower beds to the forest beyond. They made it a hundred yards into the forest, Mabel lunging through the undergrowth the whole way with her heavy dress catching on branches, before the security guards gave up the chase.

Mabel threw herself to the forest floor. “I _hate_ this stupid dress!” She pulled at the strings behind her back. “No one should ever have to wear these. It’s torture! And what keeps poking me!?” She dug her hand into the bodice, wrapping her fingers around the offending object, and pulled. It came loose with a rip. She extracted her fist from the dress and opened it. A key lay in the palm of her hand, wrapped in a bundle of broken thread.

Dipper picked it out of her hand and examined it closely. “That’s weird. There are some kind of symbols stamped on it.” He put the key in his pocket. “But we can look into that another time. Right now we need to see that paper Preston found.”

Mabel extracted her phone from the dress and pulled up the picture she took from over Preston’s head. She held the phone so that Dipper could look too. He manipulated the image with his fingertips until they could clearly see the paper. It was a map.

“Look,” Dipper said. “There’s a church with an ‘X’ on the belltower.”

“That’s the one in the town square, isn’t it?”

Dipper nodded. “Right, that’s where Grunkle Ford and I were hiding when he tried to shoot Bill with the Quantum Destabilizer. We should head there right away. Preston probably has a big lead on us.”

* * *

The twins found Preston’s SUV parked in the town square near the statue of Nathaniel Northwest. They raced up the steps to St. Theseus’ Church and entered through the large door. It was supposedly the first church and one of the first buildings constructed in Gravity Falls, but the interior looked so new and well-maintained that Dipper idly worried that there might not be much of the original structure left to find the deed in.

They walked through the narthex, stood under the belltower, and looked up. The ceiling of the ground level of the tower had an opening under the bell and they could see it high overhead. “Look, there he is!” Mabel pointed. She spotted Preston moving around in the top level of the tower.

“I don’t think you’re going to get up there in that dress,” Dipper said, indicating a ladder built into the interior wall of the tower and disappearing through a small trapdoor in the ceiling.

Mabel blew a raspberry at him. “I don’t need a ladder. I’ll take the elevator!” She pulled out her grappling hook and fired upward at the bell. It swung around the bell’s headstock and latched back onto the bell’s mouth with a muffled ‘bong’. Mabel wrapped one arm around her brother and released the catch, pulling them both up into the tower.

“Stop right there, Northwest!” Dipper yelled as they reached the top level.

Preston was kneeling by the south wall of the tower. He had pried away a board, and was pulling a bundle wrapped in oilskin out the hole. “It’s too late, you miscreants! I’ve got it right here.” He unwrapped the bundle as they watched, dangling from the grappling hook.

“Look!” He pulled a piece of paper from the bundle. “The deed.” He began reading it, “All the forested lands in the valley… bounded by the Hanging Cliffs in the north… Lookout Point in the south… Lake Gravity Falls in the east… Bear Ridge in the west… hereby belong to…” He paused for dramatic effect. “Clothilde Northwest!?” He composed himself. “No matter. I still inherit them, just from my great great great grandmother rather than my great great great grandfather. And as for you two…” He turned the wheel that rang the bell, releasing the grappling hook and sending the twins into freefall.

Dipper managed to grab Mabel by the ankles as her wide skirt caught the air and billowed like a parachute, slowing their descent just enough to prevent serious injury. They landed on the ground floor of the belltower with a hard thud that knocked the breath out of them both.

Preston was already climbing down the ladder and paused before he ran out the door of the church. “Have fun, brats.” He sneered. “I’ve got an appointment at the courthouse to claim my rightful inheritance.”

Mabel laid back on the wooden floor of the church, her enormous skirt retained its shape like an ice cream cone on its side. “He’s got the deed. What are we going to do now?”

Dipper thought for a minute, reviewing the past few hours in his head. “The deed said Clothilde owned the land. Wait. How does Preston know he’s the inheritor? The lady at the museum said Clothilde’s will was lost, just like the deed.”

* * *

Dipper climbed through the window and dropped to the floor of the museum, then turned and helped Mabel as she struggled to pull her dress through. She fell to the floor on her chin. “Grrr, I _hate_ this dress!”

He hushed her and whispered. “I can’t believe they still leave these windows unalarmed. Someone could make off with millions of dollars in artifacts. Let’s get back to the Northwests.” He led the way through the exhibit hall back without encountering any tour groups. 

They returned to ‘The Founding of Gravity Falls’ to find that someone had crudely reattached the desk’s leg with wood glue and replaced the items that had fallen off of it. Mabel started going through the drawers in the desk and cabinets.

“Where did Preston leave off before he broke the desk?” Dipper muttered to himself. “Right, the pack.” He started opening pockets. “Hmm. Nothing.” He untied the bedroll and stretched it out as Mabel gave up on the drawers and went to the Clothilde and children’s diorama across the aisle.

Mabel examined the figure of Clothilde. “Do you think she hid it in her dress like the key?”

Dipper looked up from the bedroll and smirked. “Maybe, but you’re sticking your hand down the old lady’s dress, not me.” The picture on the table caught his eye again and he got up to take a closer look. “Huh. Remember that key you found sewn in your dress earlier? The mom is wearing it on a ribbon around her neck in this picture. Same weird symbols and everything.” He pulled the key out of his pocket to compare.

The twins heard Sue’s voice announce that her tour group would be entering ‘The Founding of Gravity Falls’ exhibit. “Quick, stand next to the old lady,” Mabel whispered. They took their positions and stayed completely still as Sue led another group of tourists through the exhibit hall, giving the exact same speech she had given to them earlier.

After tens of minutes and dozens of photographs, the tour group finally moved on to the 1920s. Dipper and Mabel both let out a sigh of relief and slumped against the wall. 

Mabel looked at the picture frame on the small table and got a mischievous glint in her eye. “Hey, wanna see a magic trick?” Before Dipper could stop her, Mabel picked the edge of the tablecloth up and gave it a hard yank. “Ta-da!” The picture frame went flying across the exhibit hall and crashed into the lumberjack camp diorama.

“Mabel!” he whispered sotto voce.

“Oops!” She looked down at the tablecloth in her hands guiltily before her expression changed to one of surprise. “Oh! Look at the table.” The table’s top surface was inlaid with dark colored symbols like the ones on the key.

Dipper bent down to investigate. “Hey, there’s a small drawer here.” He pulled the handle, but it was locked.

“Try the key,” Mabel prompted him.

He pulled the key out of his pocket and pushed it into the keyhole. It fit. He turned it and the drawer unlocked with a crisp click. Inside, was a sheet of paper, an old black book, and some glass vials. Whatever the vials had contained had degraded to dust in the intervening century and a half. Dipper picked up the piece of paper and skimmed through it. “This is it! It’s her will…” He started reading it in depth. “Wow, I’m no lawyer but this thing is really well written. There are all kinds of stipulations and clauses...” He pointed to a section on the page. “Oh, here it is. It says that all lands belonging to Clothilde will be left in a trust to be passed down to her daughters and her daughter’s daughters, and only through the matrilineal line in perpetuity.”

Mabel frowned. “That’s… kind of weird. Didn’t Ezekiel get the businesses? Why didn’t she give him the land too?”

“I don’t know.” Dipper shrugged. “But it definitely proves that Preston doesn’t own the forest. We need to get this to the courthouse.”

* * *

The judge sat behind the bench in the Gravity Falls courthouse wearing a stately black robe. He was short and a little pudgy with a rim of gray hair around his otherwise bald head. He raised his gavel, ready to strike the sounding board. “It seems that Mr. Northwest’s case is sound. I hereby award possession of all the lands bounded by the deed of Clothilde Northwest to—” He paused as a commotion erupted in the hallway outside the courtroom.

Dipper and Mabel pushed past a pair of bailiffs and burst into the courtroom through the main entrance in the back of the gallery. Dipper thrust a piece of paper in the air. “Objection, your honor!” he shouted, only to realize that there were only a handful of people in the room, and they were all quietly staring at the two teens in confusion.

The judge scowled. “Order in the court! Explain yourselves or I’ll have you thrown in a holding cell for contempt.”

Dipper stammered for a moment. Television court dramas didn’t prepare him for the small group of people before him. It was just Preston, his weaselly-looking attorney, a rotund man in an ill-fitting suit who was the town’s legal representative, a bailiff, and the judge. Not one person had turned out to watch this potentially momentous court case from the gallery.

“Your honor,” Mabel said, taking the lead, “my brother and I learned that Mr. Northwest is attempting to steal—”

“This is completely legal and you can’t stop me!” Preston sneered at her.

The judge sternly banged his gavel. “Mind your tongue, Mr. Northwest, or you’ll be the one in the holding cell.”

Mabel continued, “Anyway, my brother is holding Clothilde Northwest’s lost will. And her land was _not_ left to Preston Northwest.”

Preston rolled his eyes, “Well of course not. It was left to Nathaniel’s heir, Ezekiel. And from there down the line to me.”

“I will not warn you again, Mr. Northwest.” The judge pointed his gavel at the former billionaire threateningly.

Dipper regained his head. “Your honor, I submit the will as evidence. It says that the land was left to Clothilde’s daughters, and all their female descendents.” He walked up and handed the will to the town’s lawyer.

Preston elbowed his weaselly attorney, whispering, “I’m paying you a lot of money. Don’t ruin this for me!”

“Objection, your honor!” —the attorney raised his hand— “A couple of kids can’t just walk into a courtroom and submit new evidence.”

The town’s lawyer looked up from the will. “Actually, they can. Under section 31(b) of the town charter, children under the age of fifteen may submit evidence to a court of law at any time if dressed in old-timey attire.”

The judge banged his gavel. “Objection overruled. Mr. Aberly, please bring the new evidence to the bench.”

Aberly, the lawyer representing the town of Gravity Falls, approached the bench with the will and handed it to the judge.

Preston elbowed his attorney again.

“Objection, your honor! That will is clearly a fake. The boy fabricated it himself. This is obstruction of justice!”

The judge held the will up to the light to read. “Overruled,” he muttered, just loud enough for everyone to hear. “This legal document is incredibly well-written. There’s no way a child could have made this. This is the work of the kind of attorneys only the wealthiest person in town can afford. The land should go to the granddaughters of the daughters of Clothilde Northwest.”

“But… but… but it would be nearly impossible and costly for the court to track them all down. And they wouldn’t want it. The back taxes would ruin them.” Preston’s attorney grasped at straws.

The judge nodded sagely. “You’re absolutely right, of course. But which entity should get ownership of the forests?” He paused thoughtfully. “Clothilde’s intent was obviously to keep the land out of the hands of Ezekiel and his descendents. But it would be onerous to track down all of the daughter’s daughter’s...et cetera. Therefore the best way to proceed is for the town of Gravity Falls to continue maintaining ownership of the property in question as public land. That is my ruling.” He stroked the gavel against the sounding block. “Case dismissed.”

* * *

Dipper sat on the edge of the Mystery Shack’s roof platform, sipping a Pitt Cola and talking on his phone. “And then, Mr. Northwest was so angry, he stormed out of the courthouse and sped off in his big SUV. But the sheriff pulled him over for speeding only half a block away.” Dipper laughed as he recounted Preston’s comeuppance to his girlfriend.

“You have the weirdest stories, Mason,” Crystal crooned affectionately. “You could have just told me you stayed in all day and watched a ‘New York D.A.’ marathon all afternoon. I hope you did manage to pick up some deodorant for yourself though; for Mabel’s sake, at least.”

Dipper shook his head and sighed. “Yeah, we stopped by the store on our way back from dropping off the old clothes at the museum. It was annoying. They didn’t have my brand or anything travel size, so I had to buy a full-size stick of some local-brand Mountain Musk deodorant. I think this is what Grunkle Stan uses, because I smell like him now. It will take me months to use it up.”

“Well, I’m just glad you’ll be home in six days. I miss you.” She made a kissing sound.

“I miss you too. Goodnight!” He made the kissing sound back at her, waited for her to say ‘bye’, then ended the call.

* * *

Dipper awoke with a start. He’d been having his recurring nightmare about Weirdmaggedon. In his nightmare, the real Ford had shaken hands with Bill Cipher, who then escaped the weirdness bubble around Gravity Falls and destroyed the universe. He wasn’t surprised that returning to the scene of the event triggered the nightmare.

What did surprise him was the bright light being cast on the attic ceiling. He glanced over at Mabel, but she was fast asleep. Either she or Waddles was snoring peacefully. Dipper turned his head every so slightly and saw that the bright light was coming through the window. He then noticed a low rumbling noise and various bangs and crunches coming from outside. Soos’ warning about people seeing UFOs stirred in his memory and he got excited.

Dipper rolled out of bed, landing quietly on his hands and knees on the rough wood floor. He crawled to the window and peeked over the sill. Outside he saw the source of the bright lights and commotion. His eyes shot wide open. “Mabel, wake up!”

Be sure to read the next adventure: 

A Change of Plans


End file.
